Police probe overnight fire at Manitoba cabinet minister’s constituency office
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WINNIPEG – Police are investigating a fire that broke out early Tuesday morning at the constituency office of Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine.
The blaze came roughly one week after windows at the office were smashed, and followed a series of attempted fires at the constituency office of Bernadette Smith, another NDP cabinet minister in an adjacent riding.
Premier Wab Kinew, speaking at an event marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, offered his support to Fontaine.
“Everyone deserves to be safe when they go to work,” Kinew said.
“And when we look at what’s going on around North America — with violence going on in politics in the States, and we see all sorts of division happening here in Canada — I just want to make it really clear that in Manitoba, we have to keep peace, we have to keep calm.”
“And when you look at the residential school survivors, they changed Canada for the better in an entirely peaceful, dignified, compassionate way.”
Two fire investigation trucks were seen outside Fontaine’s constituency office — a small one-storey building in the St. John’s area north of downtown Winnipeg — hours after the blaze.
The fire was reported around 5 a.m. There was no one inside when firefighters arrived and there were no injuries.
“Upon arrival on scene, firefighters found smoke coming from the building. They entered and launched an interior fire attack,” the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said in a news release.
In the adjacent constituency of Point Douglas, the office for Smith, the minister for housing, addictions and homelessness, has been hit by four attempted fires since the start of August.
Police are investigating all of the incidents and have not announced any arrests.
There have been rising concerns about security at constituency offices. Unlike ministerial offices inside government buildings, constituency offices are often small storefronts that are easy to access by the public.
Police were called to Manitoba New Democrat Adrien Sala’s office in 2022 after staff reported being threatened by a man who walked in. Funding for security systems at constituency offices in the province was increased the same year.
In 2023, a constituency assistant in Nova Scotia was physically attacked in her office.
Former federal public safety minister Marco Mendicino, in 2024, called for the creation of “protective zones” around political constituency offices to shield members of Parliament and their staff from a rising tide of threatening behaviour.
— with files from Brittany Hobson